Sandy Dietrich-Bell and Kendra Foord stand with the memorial plaque ROOF has for youth who have died. Three names were added in three weeks this year.

Three ROOF youths die weeks apart

By Melissa Murray, For the Chronicle

Sandy Dietrich-Bell is sick of attending funerals.

Dietrich-Bell, the executive director of Reaching Our Outdoor Friends had to watch as three names in three weeks were added to a memorial plaque for youths that have died since January.

When the three youths died they weren’t accessing supports provided by ROOF, which provides services to homeless youth aged 12-25, but the impact was felt by the entire organization.

“It’s very difficult to process, it’s such a waste,” Dietrich-Bell said. “It’s devastating and the ripple effect is tremendous. I’ve spent a lot of time in the last three months counselling my staff, trying to help them grieve, trying to help them recognize that despite our best efforts choices get made and things happen that are beyond our control.”

Two of the youths had stopped seeking support from ROOF after feeling self-sufficient, the third overdosed after being released from police custody.

“The two had left with supports in place,” she said. “They were stable and then a few months later, I can’t even begin to guess what changed in their worlds but suddenly, usually from the youths, we find out that they’ve died.”

The plaque was started eight years ago when Dietrich-Bell started with the organization. It now has 10 names on it.

“We wanted to find a way to honour those who have died that we have tried to support or offered services to,” she said. “It’s difficult because having an open ceremony or service can be triggering to other youth, but we thought this was something we could do to recognize them.”

Kendra Foord, manager of services at ROOF, said the impact has been felt around the organization. “These are folks that were trying to make changes in their lives and that makes this all the more devastating,” Foord said.

But she said it is often worse for the youths’ peers, to whom they offer grieving services and referrals to counselling organizations in the region.

As staff and the homeless youth ROOF supports grieve, Dietrich-Bell worries that without a change in society’s attitude, more homeless youth will die.

“It would be easy to say we need more affordable housing or ROOF needs more money or we need more psychiatrists to diagnose youth properly . . .,” Dietrich-Bell said. “That stuff is all 100 per cent true. But a small agency can’t exert the amount of pressure that it would take to make those things happen, but society could.

“We have to start recognizing that people are dying — we can stop it and do things that are more proactive and preventative instead of always very much after the fact when it costs us 10 times as much money and 10 times as much grief and heartache. If things were done on the other end of the scale, lives would be saved and real change would happen.”

Regional Coun. Sean Strickland said news like this only emphasizes the need for not only affordable housing, but supportive housing, which helps to provide services so the core issues that can lead to someone being homeless in the first place can be addressed.

“It’s sad to see these deaths in such close succession and only highlights the need for the region to continue to make investments in affordable housing,” he said.

“It’s always sad to see homeless people and particularly young people have their lives end prematurely.”

While the choices made outside of ROOF can’t be controlled, after 25 years in the community, ROOF is making some choices of its own and changes could be afoot as the organization undergoes a feasibility study.

The results of which will be known later this year.

“We are increasingly busy. We have more youth than we have ever seen before, certainly more youth with complex and concurrent disorders,” Dietrich-Bell said, adding staff have seen more youth with crystal meth addictions as well as mental health issues.

Along with more challenges for staff, ROOF is busting at the seams, she said.

In 2013, ROOF supported almost 850 unique individuals through their shelter, workshops, job placements and food hampers among other services.

“We are doing our best to do what we can and maintain the programs that we have, but we are certainly very aware of gaps in service and gaps in programming and we are trying to address that, not only for our youth, but as part of our strategic plan.

“We’re not celebrating that we need to be here, but we are really wanting to thank the community and re-evaluate the gaps in service,” she said.